Friday, October 14, 2011

that icy smile

It slows us all from time to time, that smile too cool with teeth. The spies stand pole still on the skin, electric rumors everywhere. Beauty so clear and resolute that all that is left is given. The trust that is the main part wonder, every feel all brush and linger. The seduction that ends up merely mostly ploy. The clinging tingling that almost always ends up wrong.

There is that fact of attraction, that solid crush of ache and appetite that sways and pulls upon every sense. Reason is sublimated into coarse service, finding the way through the maze of these inert tongues, blazing the trail of words to follow. Holding hands with these frantic needs and this fallow heart, following these faint leavings deeper into the dark. These holes always have their say, want and lack synonymous inside this slavering flesh.

I forget myself, assaulted by the thrall of beauty. The lights are on but no-one is working the door. All the years and the wounds, all the curses and the spells. The savagery always waiting in the wings, the spattered evidence always next to manifest. The absence of hope or promise or anything even resembling a virtue. The wonder of it all fills the eyes until there is nothing left to see. Eyes clouded with salt and ash, that icy smile feasts in leisure, making meals from each mistake.